Feeder for sheet material



June 28, 1927. 1,634,074

H. s. LABOMBARDE FEEDER FOR SHEET MATERIAL Filed NOV. 30, 1925 INVENTOR.

120 HAHEILD S. LABEIMBAHDE.

67 6 5 67 ATTORNEYS.

Patented June 28, 1927.

' UNITED STATES HAROLD S. LAIBOMBARDE, F NASHUA, NEW Hm FEEDER FOB SHEET MATERIAL.

Application filed November 30, 1925. Serial No. 72,298.

This invention relates to machines for feeding cut sheets or blanks, and has particular reference to means for forwarding sin ly, from the bottom of a pile, such thick an lar e blanks as those which are em- 7 ployed or making corrugated paper cartons or cases.

As is well-known, corrugated paper, while stifi, is very soft as to thickness and will not withstand much compression especially at the 'ed es. Paper blanks of single. thickness can e readily forwarded from the bottom of a pile and in timed succession, to

other mechanism such as folding machines,

by feedcrs'which push each blank through a narrow opening commonly referred to as a gate or gateway. Feeders of this type however, as heretofore constructed, do not 0 crate satisfactorily on blanks of corrugatco paper which, as is known, alwaysconsists of at east three layers of which the upper and lower ones are flat and not very thick.

The reason for such unsatisfactory operation is due to two characteristics of the material,

viz, its extreme softness articularly at the edges, and a common tend of the upper and lower'layers to curl. These characteristics otten result in improper en gagement of the pushers with the rear edges so of the blanks, or engagement with two blanks instead oi one, and sometimes result in the front edges of two blanks getting into the outlet gate and causing a jam.

The object of in present invention is to provide a feeder o the pusher and gateway type above referred to, which will reliably forward accurately, one at a time and in spaced timed relationship,blanks having the characteristics of corrugated paper.

ac With theabcve stated object n vView, the

invention consists in the construction and combination'of parts substantially as hereinafter described.

Of the accompanying drawings at Figure-1 is asi e ee as used in connection with othermechanism to which the blanks are fed.

Figure 2 is a plan view of the same, part- 1y broken out. a

Figure 3 is a detail side view, on a larger scale, of one of the pushers.

Figure 4 is a detail side view, on a larger scale, of one of the pressers and its mounting.

ency of the edges vation of the feeder Figure 5 is a face view of the lower end portion of the gate strip.

Similar reference characters indicate similar parts or featuresin all of the views.

Portions of the frame of the machine are indicated at 12, connected by tie rods 13. The blanks a are fed between rolls 14 to belts 15 mounted on pulleys 16 carried b upper and lower shafts 17, 18, said belts t en carrying the blanks to machines which act on the blanks as by folding them. Such a folding machine is illustrated in Letters Patent $551,565,167, granted to me December 8, The blanks a are supported in a hopper including floor strips such as are commonly employe in blank feeders, side wall members 19 (Fig. 2), and a frontwall having an adjustable gate strip 20 (Fi 1) below the lower end of which the blan are fed, one by one, the construction of all of the memhere so far referred to being of such wellknown type (excepting a feature of the gate strip hereinafter explained) as not to need detailed description and illustration.

The rear portion of the pile of blanks, or rather the rear edge portion of the lowermost blank, rests on one or more plates 21. Figure 2 indicates four of such plates, but a lesser number, or even one, is su'ficlently serviceable in some machines. Each plate (Fig. 3) is pivoted at 22 to a slide 23 and is inclinedv upwardly and rearwardly to a portion indicated at 24 beyond which is a substantially horizontal portion 25, and a shoulder or abutment 26. For convenience of description the angular portion 24 is referred to as a hump. By means of a screw -27 rising from the slide 23 the inclination of the plate 21 may be adjusted.

Each slide 23 (Fig. 1) has a downwardly extending lug 28 connected by a link 29 with an arm 3d of a rock shaft 31, said shaft having at one end an arm 32 having a roll 33 bearing on a cam 3t carried by the lower shaft 18, whereby all of the slides are reciprocated in unison.

The reason for the formation of the push ers as illustrated by Figure 3 is to prevent crushin of the rear ed es of the lower blanks y the weight c the pile above, which crushing would be liable to causev the shoulders of the pushers to on age the edges of two blanks instead ct on y the bottom one: It frequently happens-that the edges of all of the layers of a corrugated paper sheet or blank are not flush with each other. For instance, the edges of the upper and. lower thin flat layers of a sheet or blank sometimes project beyond the edge of the intermediate corrugated layer. In such case the thickness of the edge of the bottom blank of a pile is liable to be. reduced by the weight of the blanks above it if the extreme edge of the bottom blank is resting on anything. .By forming the pushers 21 with recesses at 25, due to the humps 24, any tendency to crush the lower blank would be at said humps at a sufficient distance from the extreme rear edge of the bottom blank to prevent the occurrence of any such pressure at the extreme edge as would let the edge of the next higher blank get into the path of movement of the shoulders 26 of ,,the pusliers so as to result in the simultaneous feeding of two blanks.

The reason for adjusting the pusher-s, as by the screws 27 (Fig. 3) is'to meet varying conditions as to degree of edge curling ex isting in corrugated paper made of different stocks or by different manufacturing methods or machines.

Mounted on two of the tie rods 13 are two flat plates or bars 35 which support strips 36. Pivoted at 37 to said strips are two levers 38 which are actuated by cams 89 carried by the shaft 17, each of said levers having an upwardly extending end portion 40, A spring 41 connects a pin at the top of said end portion with a portion of strip 86, said spring coasting with cam 39 to efiect vertical movements of the lever 38 A link 42 (Figs. 1 and t) connects each lever 38 with the arm i? of a presser finger 4E4 pivoted at 45 to the lower end of a slide 46 mounted in a bracket 47 carried by strip 36. A. friction pad i8 is pressed against the slide 46 by a spring 49 so that when the lever 38 rises it will first swing the finger 44 away from the front edges of the blanks and then overcome the friction of pad 48 so as to shift the slide and finger upward, the finger being then out of contact with the edges of the blanks. Upon return or downward movement of the lever 38, effected by the spring ll, the finger if is first swung yieldingly against the edges of the blanks, and then the slide 46 and finger 44 move down so that the finger yieldingly urges the front edges of the lowermost blanks down, said action being sufiicient to overcome any upward curl of the edge of the bottom blank and facilitate its correct feeding movement through the gate by the pushers 21, The movements of the fingers may be described as four-motion in that they move inward against the edges of the blanks, then down, then outward and up. The gearing or drive connections are such that the downward venience, as slivers.

movement of the fingers occurs just as, or just before, the pushers 21 begin their forward and feeding movement.

To aid in securing proper successive engagement of the pushers with the blanks, I provide pressing l'll'lgGl'S to art on the rear edges of the blanks as well as those at the front, said rear pressers being constructed and operated substantially as the front ones just described. Each rear pressing finger 50 (Fig. 1) is pivotally connected to a slide frictionally mounted in a suitably supported bracket 51. and has an arm connected by a link 52 with a lever 53 pivoted at 54. Each lever 53 is actuated by a spring 55 and a cam 56 carried by a shaft 57. The shaft 57 is driven by bevel gear connections 58 with a suitably driven shaft 59.

To secure proper registration or squaring up of the blanks as they descend due to the successive removal of the lower ones, 1 provide a side presser 60, pivoted at 61 and having an arm 62 which, by a spring 63, is held against the periphery of a cam 64 carried by shaft 65 having bevel gear connections 66 with the shaft 59. The presser 6O acts through an opening in one of the side walls 19 to intermittently and yieldingly press the lower blanks of the pile squarely against the other side wall 19.

Blanks for making corrugated paper cartons are usually made with narrow slots in their edges, in line with their creases. The machine for cutting out the blanks sometimes fails to entirely remove the little pieces which are cut out to provide said slots, said pieces being herein referred to, for con- If any such sliver remains in a slot which is in line with the gate strip 20 when fed, its presence is liable to prevent free and accurate passage of the blank through the gateway. To permit such sliver to pass without interfering with the passage of the blank carrying such sliver, I providea plurality of gate edges instead of a single strip having a straight horizontal lower edge. In Figure 5 ll illustrate two gate edges or members 67. In said figure said edges 67 are illustrated as parts of a single strip 20 but, obviously, each member might be the lower edge of its own strip. In other words, the strip 20 could be vertically divided. Either way, the result is to provide a recess or s ace 68 through which any sliver being carried along by a blank may freely pass.

@wing to the character of corrugated paper blanks, such as their stiffness and their usually large areas, it is not easy for an attendant, when making additions to the pile in a hopper of ordinary construction, to so locate the added blanks that they will arrive in the hopperin properly registered positions. To facilitate the proper'locations of blanks manually added to the top of a more orless depreciated supply in the hopper, I

rear edges dropping down to the front of and past said rolls to horizontal positions. This, of course, is when the ile in the hopper is lower than illustrate in Figure 1. The rolls are wide enough so as to cause nolongitudinal depressions bein made in the under surface of the blank w ich bears thereon, while riding over the rolls.

As the operations of the difl'ere'nt members of the feeder mechanism have been explained in connection with the description of the structures thereof, an explanation of the operation'of the feeder as a whole is unnecessary.

Having now described my invention, I

' claim l. A blank feeder havin a hopper provided with-an outlet at its rout, means for forwarding blanks flatwise and singl the bottom of a pile in the hopper through said outlet, and means having a four motion from operation for ur 'ng edge portions of the blanks downwar said urging means being located close to said front outlet.

2. A blank feeder having a hopper rovided with an outlet, means for forwar ing blanks fiatwise and singly from the bottom of a pile in the hopper through said outlet, and means located close to said outlet for urging edge portions of the blanks downward, the forwarding means and the urgin means being constructed to operate in time relationship to act substantially simultaneously.

3.' A blank feeder having means for an porting a pile of blanks and permitting t e delivery of the blanks singly from the bottom thereof, a pusher having a shoulder and a raised portion at a sufiicient distance forward of the shoulder to support the weight of the pile at a point removed from the edge ofvthe bottom blank and prevent crushing of said edge. .7

4. A blank feeder substantially as specified by claim 3, the said pusher bein adjustable.

5. In a feeder havmg means or forwarding blanks singly from the bottom of a pile, a frictionally mounted slide having a fin er pivoted thereto, and means connected with said finger to oscillate it relatively to the slide and to shift the slide and its finger.

In testimony whereof I have aflixed my signature.

HAROLD s. LABOMBARDE. 

